Purifying Water Long Ago..How?

[Monk]

Has anyone here any knowledge how the ancients purified/filtered water?
I am thinking of explorers and ancient cultures. I do recall hearing on a shortwave radio program how one outdoor person claimed that the Japanese in WWII used some kind of leaves/plant herb to put in water to purify it and also I remember reading somewhere how the ancient Egyptians used different pots and strips of cloth to seep clean water from one pot to another using capillary action.

Have not been able to find much info on this. Any history gurus or jungle travellers here who can shed some light on this topic? How explorers or native peoples filtered water for drinking?
Monk

 

[arctic hobo]

Well for one thing rainwater is pure (at least it was until it became acid ). But beyond that, I'm not sure. A good question!

 

[outdoorgirl]

Doesn't it have something to do with filtering through moss and charcoal? Or is that just filtering and not purifying?

 

[Venger]

Didn't they just turn it into beer and wine?

 

[Ogri the trog]

I might be hopelessly wrong in my assumtion,
But wasn't man, historically, more able to cope with bugs and germs than we are now.
I know that with modern science has come the realisation that these nasties exist, but surely ancient folk would just drink and either be well enough to return to a water source, or be made ill and thus avoid the place as being cursed.

Ogri the trog

 

[Bardster]

The Saxons and Vikings did not drink water - they drank small beer and soured milk - whey.
small beer was the result of using the same mash for multiple brewings. Your first batch was your best beer - and the stuff you got drunk on. by the time you had used the mash 3 or 4 times you had a very weak alcoholic solution - not enough to get drunk on but enough to kill any nasties.

 

[Goose]

I might be hopelessly wrong in my assumtion,
But wasn't man, historically, more able to cope with bugs and germs than we are now.
I know that with modern science has come the realisation that these nasties exist, but surely ancient folk would just drink and either be well enough to return to a water source, or be made ill and thus avoid the place as being cursed.

Ogri the trog

In the 1850s they simply removed the pump handle to stop a cholera epidemic in London so you are probably right. And that was a big move in public health!

 

[spamel]

I would imagine that they would have drunk straight from source. Also, as mentioned already, they would have had a good immune system to fight against bugs and the like. There wouldn't have been the pollution there is today so the water source would have been cleaner. Apart from the dead sheep in the water 50 metres upstream!!

 

[arctic hobo]

Although there's not much that will save you from that. A friend's uncle served in Vietnam, where they were all told to use twice the recommended dosage of chlorine tablets. This guy figured that he might as well use three times, since you can't be too careful. One morning he dipped his water bottle into a stream, put in six tablets, and stopped on the other side of the river. He stood around waiting for some engineers he was meeting, and took a few drinks from his bottle. Met the engineers, walked 50 yards up the river, found two dead cows. He and his buddy were calling medevac ten minutes later - he survived after three months in hospital, his buddy died of multiple haemorrhages

 

[Justin Time]

and of course it's worth remembering that much of the bacterial/viral pollution in wild water comes because of human activity, ie because of our poor hygiene we've spread the bugs.

 

[RovingArcher]

The water in N. America was clean of virus' and the other minor water born diseases were tollerated by the indegenous peoples. It wasn't until Europeans came here that cholera and other diseases showed up. Even plaque was unheard of here until the European rats found the land to their liking. Now it can be found in most of country.

 

[Stuart]

Has anyone here any knowledge how the ancients purified/filtered water?
I am thinking of explorers and ancient cultures. I do recall hearing on a shortwave radio program how one outdoor person claimed that the Japanese in WWII used some kind of leaves/plant herb to put in water to purify it and also I remember reading somewhere how the ancient Egyptians used different pots and strips of cloth to seep clean water from one pot to another using capillary action.

Have not been able to find much info on this. Any history gurus or jungle travellers here who can shed some light on this topic? How explorers or native peoples filtered water for drinking?
Monk

for the most part they didn’t, they simply built up an immunity to the bacteria and viruses in there local water supply by drinking it since they were born.

when I first met my wife in Mauritius (she is Mauritian and I was living there) I stayed with her family for 6 months, my wife drank the water without any problems at all, where as it made me quite ill for the first month, then after that my body seemed to build up an acceptance for it.

the native groups in the jungle that I have spent time with simply drink the river water with no ill effect, something that would defiantly spell problems for me.

Simple filtration is used by some groups to remove silt and debris but this has more to do with improving the taste than removing harmful organisms.

by far the simplest and most common purification technique use by those that treat their water is Boiling it, the most advanced technique that I have witnessed was practiced by the Bedu in the deserts of middle east who place two silver coins in their water bags, silver of course being an element lethal to bacteria.

 

[Keith_Beef]

The alcohol content of ale and beer is not enough to kill microorganisms that cause disease.

Ale was safer to drink than water simply because the process involves boiling for long enough to get the sugars (and a bit of starch) out of the malted grain, then the fermentation is over quickly enough and the ale was drunk soon enough that there is not time for it to go off.

Beer could be kept for longer, because the phenol compounds in the hop flowers acted as a mild antiseptic.

So, you could boil your water...

So long as your animals are healthy, there should be no problem drinking fresh milk from ewes, goats, camels, horses or cows.

According to Jared Diamond (in Guns, Germs and Steel), Europeans developed a certain degree of immunity or at least resistance to tuberculosis through millenia of contact with cattle. New World populations lacked resistance to this disease (and many others, notably smallpox and influenza), resulting, for example, in a reduction of Amerindian populations from and estimated 20 millions before 1492 to less than 2 millions by the 1700s.

Similarly, as Stuart pointed out, you gain resistance to local conditions through exposure to the causes of disease and maybe the local diet can contain natural medicines. Supposedly, the ancient Egyptians used to eat mouldy bread as a cure for some illnesses. This would have been the penicilin bacterium working as an antibiotic.

Here's some more info:
http://www.tallpoppies.net.au/florey/explorer/story/72ex.html

As for wicking and porous pots, I think that this is more like using controlled evaporation to cool the water, which would make it nicer to drink and go some little way to guarding against the proliferation of microorganisms. You would also want to keep the jar covered to stop flies from laying their eggs in there.

Keith.

 

[match]

As has already been mentioned in the West the main method of turning water into a drinkable liquid was fermentation - the boiling with sugar (and to a certain degree the alcohol) preserving the liquid.

However, in the east boiling alone (tea) was the main method of water preparation. This is one of the main reasons why in parts of Asia some people lack the appropriate enzyme to aid alcohol breakdown - because it wasn't a major part of their diet and their bodies never needed to deal with it.

 

[Spacemonkey]

I go along with the local acquired immunity theory. In my part of Spain the locals can happily drink the irrigation water, but we get bad belly ache as the mineral content is far too high for us, not to mention any bugs. When my mate spends weeks on Dartmoor, he gets a bit 'runny' for a few days then sorts his self out back to normal. This must be a demo of 'getting used to it' one way or the other. Oh, and how come my dog can drink what he likes where he likes and he doesn't get grief? Must have stronger resisitance?

 

[Monk]

Very interesting info. Stuart, I do remember hearing about the silver coins in water and milk.supposedly in north america to kill germs and keep milk fresh. Apparently the older coins had a higher silver content? I thought it was a tale unril you mention how you actually observed it by natives.

 

[Rob Hofman]

Hallo,

For some information on water purifying history take a look at

http://www.lenntech.com/water-disinfection/history-drinking-water-treatment.htm
http://www.lenntech.com/water-disinfection/history-water-disinfection.htm

Around 1800 in the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands it was normal to drink water out of the river true a piece of cloth (sipping) this was the same water that was used as a toilet. This wasn't a problem until Cholera came along. When antony van Leeuwenhoek invented the microscop it could be proved that there were cholera bacteria in the water after that it took about 40 -50 years before the goverment finally took care for suplying save water for the people.

At the last dutch bushcraft weekend we did some filter experiments we made a filter from charcoal/sand and filtered some water from the nearby river. I am working at the local water suply company and had arranged that we could bring some water samples to the lab. We took 3 water samples one straight out of the river the second was river water which we filtered over the charcoal sand filter en the third sample was filtered water which we cooked for one minut.

After the lab test we found out that only the sample that we cooked was alwright for human consumption.

cheers Rob

 

[Moonraker]

Hallo,

For some information on water purifying history take a look at

http://www.lenntech.com/water-disinfection/history-drinking-water-treatment.htm
http://www.lenntech.com/water-disinfection/history-water-disinfection.htm

Around 1800 in the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands it was normal to drink water out of the river true a piece of cloth (sipping) this was the same water that was used as a toilet. This wasn't a problem until Cholera came along. When antony van Leeuwenhoek invented the microscop it could be proved that there were cholera bacteria in the water after that it took about 40 -50 years before the goverment finally took care for suplying save water for the people.

At the last dutch bushcraft weekend we did some filter experiments we made a filter from charcoal/sand and filtered some water from the nearby river. I am working at the local water suply company and had arranged that we could bring some water samples to the lab. We took 3 water samples one straight out of the river the second was river water which we filtered over the charcoal sand filter en the third sample was filtered water which we cooked for one minut.

After the lab test we found out that only the sample that we cooked was alwright for human consumption.

cheers Rob

Thanks for that interesting test result Rob. It confirms what most official bodies recommend.

Because there is no human habitation close to a water source does not mean it could not contain dangerous bacteria, cysts etc. Also what is as great a potential danger today, are the high levels of nitrates (opinions differ as to the relative harm of high nitrate/ nitrite levels) in the water supply and water bodies and also chemicals from pesticides and herbicides washed off crops etc. And liquid slurry from livestock farming getting into rivers and killing fish etc which happens all to often as is a greater risk now with drought conditions over much of Europe. Boiling nitrate-contaminated water before drinking it does not make it any safer. In fact, it causes some of the water to evaporate, which increases the nitrate concentration. Also the levels of these chemicals are greatly reduced in drinking water treatment so levels direct from the source such as a river or stream may potentially be a lot higher.

I guess these can be a big problems in the Nederlands with the highly intensive farming practices often used?

 

[mark a.]

We all know that if we go to India we shouldn't drink the tap water as it will make us ill. Well, it's the same in reverse - there's the story of Indian delegates going to a conference in Switzerland and getting ill off drinking their tap water. So again there's proof that you build up tolerance if you live somewhere.

 

[Rob Hofman]

I think there is a lot of nitrate in the soil and water in the Netherlands but the goverment regulations are very strickt now so i think it's getting better.

cheers Rob